I know right. People just don't join squads or forget to do so. I just got squad explosion perk and I can't wait to use it to help my squad. I know it increases RPG and mines ammunition. But what else the perk affects?

I hate to break it to you, but AA guns are extremely effective against infantry and have been deliberately employed for that purpose on a number of occasions in U.S. military history. Late in WWII, in the Korean conflict, and especially in the Vietnam Police Action, the U.S. used AA guns vs. infantry units with devastating effect.
This is a 40mm Bofors round, and this is what the NATO allies used in AA guns in 1952 and the round is still in use in other anti-personnel/anti-LAV roles today.
Just to put it in perspective, the silver, black, red, and yellow striped thing is what's hitting you and it's moving faster than most rifle projectiles travel......and they're high-explosives too!This is USMC Gunnery Sgt. (retired) R. Lee Ermey, from the movie Full Metal Jacket, loading a 40mm BOFORS with Air Force Master Sgt. Randy Scanian, 16th Special Operations Squadron, on-board an AC-130H. 12/17/2008. Photograph taken by USN PO2 (probably a JO2) Greg Mitchell. This photo is in the public domain and can be used without copyright troubles, as Mitchell took it during his official duties as a US DoD employee.
The long and short of it is that if you get hit with it, you're dead. If it hits the ground near you, you're still probably dead. If it hits the vehicle you're inside of, you're still probably dead.
So my guess is that in BF3, the game designers probably toned it down compared to reality.
Although the US DoD does not use mobile AA guns anymore, they do use the 40mm Bofors in anti-personnel roles. The fact-sheet from the USAF page, http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=71 , specifically states that the role of the AC-130H and AC-130U to be for close air support, air interdiction and force protection. On the AC-130H the 40mm is the smallest gun. On the AC-130U there is a 25mm option. Both also have a 105mm cannon. The CoD4 mission where you get to be a gunner in an AC-130U is pretty darned accurate to reality.
The M42 "Duster" was designed in 1952 and is a 40mm Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun using twin M2A1 40mm BOFORS autocannons. It's a friggin 40mm gun! It puts a hole 1.57 inches in your body with an AP round and if it hits you with an HE round, the round explodes. The projectile is a 900gram (almost 2 pound) explosive shell. It's not even a bullet, it's an anti-aircraft shell with a muzzle velocity equivalent to or exceeding most standard rifles. (in the 2850 to 3300 ft/sec. range). The amount of energy that it delivers is 338,500+ ft-lb which is thirty times that of the 50 BMG and 255 times that of the standard 5.56x45 NATO round (which is what the M249 SAW, M4 carbine, and M16 rifle all use.)

I SAID AIR ROUNDS, NOT ANTI AIR ROUNDS. THE MINIGUNS IN THE AIR VEHICLES AND THE CANNON IN THE JETS.
Dude.
That's what they beefed up.

And I don't need a lesson on the Air Force's weapons.
I was AFSOC and I spent YEARS across the runway from the Black Knights and the rest of the AC-130 squadrons, and that's not even what my comment was referring to.
Really.

I SAID AIR ROUNDS, NOT ANTI AIR ROUNDS. THE MINIGUNS IN THE AIR VEHICLES AND THE CANNON IN THE JETS.
Dude.
That's what they beefed up.

And I don't need a lesson on the Air Force's weapons.
I was AFSOC and I spent YEARS across the runway from the Black Knights and the rest of the AC-130 squadrons, and that's not even what my comment was referring to.
Really.

-T

Same...
exact...
stuff...

It's nasty stuff man. If you spent years across the runway from it in AFSOC, then you know darned-well how absolutely lethal 20mm and up rounds are.... Seriously, BF3 is probably under-coding how powerful the stuff is.

They're all using 20mm, 30mm, or 40mm autocannons (like gatling guns) that throw down High Explosive (HE) rounds and Armor Piercing (AP) rounds in alternating sequences.

M230 Chaingun is what's on the Apache and it fires M789 High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) and M799 High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) rounds.

Even the 20mm stuff has a fragmentation hazard out to 20 meters. They can miss you by 20 meters and still be potentially lethal and you're complaining that BF3 made them tougher? Sheesh.Edited by shad0wfax - 11/22/11 at 11:37pm

Yes. I get that.
And I do understand the physics, but they're specifically beefing the Air vehicles' weapons up, where they aren't upgrading the AA guns at all, and in fact (not that this is the same) the 50 CALs are being nerfed.
We all use COAX and turrets to shoot at air when we can, that's why I say it...

I see air cannon of all types in this game as plenty effective.
Any more "realistic", like you and I understand and have been discussing, and we'd have Full-Birds ranking JUST from jets and choppers every 5 seconds!
NO BUENO.

Yes. I get that.
And I do understand the physics, but they're specifically beefing the Air vehicles' weapons up, where they aren't upgrading the AA guns at all, and in fact (not that this is the same) the 50 CALs are being nerfed.
We all use COAX and turrets to shoot at air when we can, that's why I say it...

I see air cannon of all types in this game as plenty effective.
Any more "realistic", like you and I understand and have been discussing, and we'd have Full-Birds ranking JUST from jets and choppers every 5 seconds!
NO BUENO.

-T

That's true. I've often contemplated convincing someone to make a truly realistic first person combat simulator (not FPS) and realize every time that I think about it that no one would play it or enjoy it because it would be too lethal. If game designers actually made things correctly, you'd have guys with .338 Lapuas center-punching you at 1,500 yards while wearing a ghillie that only good thermals is going to be able to spot. Suppressors wouldn't reduce lethality, range, or accuracy and a head-shot to the "T" of the nose/eyes with any firearm would be instantly lethal. There wouldn't be any regeneration and a shot up leg would probably result in your death unless you got buddies to help you out. Flying an airplane would take some serious skill and the vast majority of the gamers would crash them before they ever managed to get into the combat zone, let alone engage in a dog-fight. Helicopters would be even more difficult to get right.

There's no money in a game like that. Acne ridden 13 year old nerds everywhere would be in total denial saying, "That's bullcrap, that dude only shot me once with his Beretta M9 and he killed me. That gun's totally weak!" Or they'd be crying saying, "It's not fair, that guy has a $300 HOTAS flight-stick and is owning everyone in that jet and I can't even get mine off of the ground without crashing!"

So yeah, I do understand that absolute reality + FPS = impossible, but BF3 tried to be more realistic than a certain other competitor did... I don't mind the "Air-Guns" being brutally lethal. When I get pissed off at air vehicles, I just go to an infantry only map. Tanks don't piss me off nearly so much.

EDIT: (to fix quote and add PS)

P.S. I started BF3 later than most and I'm far behind in the ranks. I hate how my M16 and M4 are somehow so much less effective at killing people than other 5.56x45 firearms are like the F2000. I think that my statistics page has most of my kills being from Stingers, RPGS, grenades, and other people's rifles that I got through battle-field pick-ups. That annoys me more than anything else. F2000 and M16 fire the same round from the same approximate barrel length. I've personally fired both weapons and honestly, I think the M16 is better. (I hate the trigger on the F2000, because it's a linkage design due to the firearm being a bull-pup; it makes it harder to be accurate, although the ejection system on the F2000 rocks.)

2nd EDIT: to remove excessive asterisks and substitute the real words back in!Edited by shad0wfax - 12/2/11 at 2:18am